Sarakasi Trust Revisited

On Tuesday, while I was walking into Sarakasi Trust for the first real day of work at my internship, I had no idea what I was going to do and how I would bring to the table. The only thing that I did know is that I really think I want to work for an organization like Sarakasi Trust for a career and I am excited to be with them. Walking out of the Sarakasi Dome I had the feeling that I could not have possibly had a more fun or better first day of actual work at my internship.

Sarakasi just began working on this community outreach program in which their best acrobats will go out into informal settlements and teach kids there acrobatics as a way to provide outlets to these children to deter them from crime and to see positives in their lives. Today was the very beginning of a training workshop to train the teachers how to teach the classes. When I joined in with the workshop, there were 5 groups of 5 or 6 people in each group, and everyone had 5 minutes or so to be a leader and teach different various basic exercises, and then after each short session there would be evaluation time within each group(what did the teacher do well, what didn't he do well, how could the teacher improve and then the groups would switch teachers and continue until everyone in the group was a teacher. I would bounce around the different groups for each session and participate in the activities and the evaluations. The mini-lesson was entirely up to the teacher for that five minutes, and I participated in everything from introductions to pre-exercise warm up stretching and calisthenics to even basic yoga moves. I also contributed with the evaluations for the different sessions I was in.

After lunch a world-class acrobat (and Sarakasi acrobat instructor at that) began to teach how to teach basic acrobatic moves step by step. These included somersaults, backwards somersaults, cartwheels, one-handed cartwheels, round-outs head-stands, and 2 person hand stands. The trained acrobats made a line and had to do each one of these as the instructor looked on and critiqued each basic move. I abstained from this participating in this because I thought it was not my place because I would not in the real program. As this was going on one of the acrobats (I forgot to say all of these acrobats who are being trained as teachers are about my age, I would guess between 16-22)said to me "Why don't you try it Ryan?" I was nervous to try it, but I knew that I would regret it later if I didn't participate.

I saw my chance as all the people broke up into small groups for sessions like in the morning, only this time it was to practice teaching these basic acrobatic moves. I figured why not participate now as I would be perfect as a person who has no experience in any of this. I served as the perfect model of the kids that they would be teaching who would be complete beginners. I did very poorly with form but I kept trying to do everything and was semi-successful (with a lot of help) And the kids seemed to really want to help me learn how to do the different moves. They were really into it and it made me excited to see this. I hope they feel the same way when they are actually out in the field and have with the laughing and joking and having the fun that they had teaching me to do these things.

It really was a new experience for me Tuesday and I had a lot of fun with what will most likely be one of if not the most fun and unique first day of an internship or job of my life. I am going to have an amazing experience interning at Sarakasi Trust this Semester!!!

WAPI and Olorgesaillie

Saturday we went to an event called WAPI (Words and Pictures… or wapi also means where in Kiswahili). WAPI is a monthly festival of underground hip-hop music and graffiti art held at the British Counsel. The graffiti art at the WAPI is incredible as it features different works of art that included hipped out slogans of “Yes We Did” and “Free Gaza” as well as some other socially conscious pictures illustrated in this artwork. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of energy present at this festival. It was a collection of like-minded individuals for a good cause. What is very interesting is the contrast in thought process and connotations of this type of art between here in Kenya and in the United States. In the United States hip-hop has been plagued for years (and only amplified even in the last few years) as music that is immoral, untalented music that contains lyrics that are just about partying and demoralizing women. Graffiti is usually thought of in the same way as being ugly and ugly and defacing public property. WAPI completely shatters those images. All of the MCs market themselves as socially conscious, all of the hawkers walking around trying to sell me CDs were saying the music contained lyrics relevant to social issues and affairs relevant to right now. Even t-shirts being sold promoting the festival had the slogan Kenyan Hip-Hop: An Intelligent Movement. The headlining hip-hop artist at this festival Saturday has the nickname War Child, as he is a former child soldier from Sierra Leone and raps about social issues. Hip-hop music can be utilized for good (as it was originally intended before the whole style became convoluted as it is today.) Likewise graffiti art can be used as a means of expression (and can look very cool in doing so) such as with messages and images like “Yes We Did” and “Free Gaza”. I find it ironic and an amazing sign for the future in arts in Kenya that this festival is hosted by the British Government at the British Counsel, and I hope that future governments can look to this events and similar events to sponsor arts for the good of society.

Today we saw a sort of art (albeit more of a life necessity) as we visited Olorgesaillie. This is an ancient prehistoric archaeological dig famous for hand-axes and other tools being found here. This was in part of the Rift Valley and had absolutely stunning scenery. It was very interesting to see ancient tools from early hominids, and I admit it is hard to recognize them as they look like just common stones… except there are ways to tell they have been carved by small carvings and other workings on them. They also had bones from ancient elephants and hippos, and its amazing to see how much larger these early ancestors of those animals are than the current ones. It is fascinating to be in part of the cradle of civilization and see the development of our species first hand, and to see how far we have come along.

Sarakasi Trust

Perhaps the biggest component of the AU Abroad Nairobi program that attracted me to it was the internship program in which we all get paired with organizations that are of interest to us. Once my program director went through descriptions and explanations of the different organizations, I became enamored with Sarakasi Trust. As of right now in my life, the type of thing I want to be doing is working for an organization that uses either music or sports as an outlet to children in inner cities or lesser opportunities to have something or some purpose to identify with help make their lives positive. Sarakasi (Circus in Swahili) Trust is exactly that, as it provides youth from the different informal settlements a way to become trained in different performing arts such as different forms of acrobatics and other dancing, urban art, and drumming and other forms of music. For the last ten years or so since their founding, they have been at the forefront of bring more arts to Nairobi. They also put on a concert every year full of reggae and afro-fusion (sort of like hip-hop/r&b urban based) acts, as well as a showcase of their different African and in some cases world-renowned acrobatic acts. Over 60,000 people attend this 2 day concert every year. Sarakasi just recently bought a movie theatre that they converted into their main stage and offices, and have a radio station in Nairobi called Ghetto Radio, and they are also opening up a restaurant very soon. I was very excited that I got my first choice and have a wonderful opportunity to intern for this amazing organization for the next few months.

When I got to the Sarakasi Dome, I was amazed at how easy of a commute it was to get to. It’s just a short trip out of downtown Nairobi, and the matatu lets you off right in front of this theatre. As I walked in I was awestruck at the amount of energy in the building. Right as soon as I walked into the dome, I saw someone practicing balance techniques on a wooden board placed on top of a cylinder and jumping around and dancing on this. On the main stage there were many people practicing choreography for a future dance program. In the main lobby of the building is a very narrow metal-winding staircase that leads to the offices some four or five stories up on the top level of the Dome. Hanging from the top in the middle of the winding staircase are acrobat ropes of various materials for the flying acrobats to train as they grab on from the staircase (there is a mat to cushion any falling at the bottom as well). As I was getting a tour of the place, we stepped out onto the roof of the Dome, and I walked right into one of the most amazing views of Downtown Nairobi (pictures will come later when I take my camera to my internship). The tour of the radio station, Ghetto Radio, was amazing as it was a full-fledged radio station complete with people working on different productions, as well as people scanning world affairs for their news program, and even a street team. All of these youth came from informal settlements and now look like professional radio personnel. Viewing these radio people work, as well as all of the very talented dancers practice their performance gave me great happiness as I see the success of the lighter, more fun side of development. I am extremely excited to be working at Sarakasi and contributing to the future success of this great organization in the coming months. I’m not sure in what capacity I will be used yet but it is going to be a lot of fun getting to hangout with acrobats and get a feel for how performance arts and development work together.

A Kenyan Inaugural Ball

“He inspires hope to the whole world; He creates hope for children to be whatever they want to be and that these dreams may actually come true.”

-Maurice, a dance instructor at Sarakasi Trust

Last night was the inauguration of Barack Obama, the 44^th president of the United States. Our new President has been a figure that has inspired millions of people and provides hope to the whole world. It was an extraordinarily unique feeling for me to watch him as he was sworn in with the same bible as Abraham Lincoln was sworn in with. I kept thinking about the connection that I have with our President and they all came to a collision at that moment. He developed his career and really launched himself from my home state of Illinois; and here he was now being praised by the entire nation in my adopted home of Washington DC in front of millions of people, and here I was watching this in the nation of Kenya, from which he has ancestral roots and a nation that considers him one of their own. Seeing that beautiful city in such an uplifting, festive atmosphere made me a little homesick for Washington DC, but I believe that Nairobi, Kenya’s capitol city, was the second best place to watch this historic event. Watching the inauguration from outside the United States, I clearly got a sense that President Barack Obama is not merely just the President of the United States of America, but he also has transcended borders and is a President for the whole of the world. Speaking with people from my office Sarakasi Trust (Stay tuned for a blogpost on this amazing organization coming soon) both Dutch and Kenyans, they view him as a great hope for people all over the world, and most of all children. Maurice, an employee who was showing me around, was telling me about the stories and images of Barack Obama, when visiting his Grandmother in Kenya in his pre-Senator days, helped her carry fruit to a market and helped sell fruit. He says that this work can inspire kids who are in the same to recognize that they can to achieve greatness.

We watched the event from the University of Nairobi, who had many giant screens positioned all over their quad and projections even on some of the Academic buildings. It was interesting to see reactions when the BBC coverage would show certain people. The crowd cheered for the Clintons and the Bidens and the Obama family of course as they were walking in. What really was interesting to me was their reaction as they showed the outgoing now ex-President George W. Bush in his last few minutes as President. The reaction was not one of boos or harsh criticism, but first cordial, soft applause, followed by many people waving their hands goodbye to him. This really surprised me. As President Obama was sworn in, the whole place erupted into cheers and people jumping for joy, and then again at various points during his speech. There was no louder point than when he spoke of the small village where his father grew up here in Kenya. Other notable points of applause were when Obama said that those leaders who ruled through corruption would be on “the wrong side of history”. This received a warm applause as well as shouts of Kbeki (the largely unpopular president of Kenya who narrowly won a corrupted election last year and has an administration stricken with corruption).

Following his speech fireworks were shot off close to campus (in downtown Nairobi) and performances were given by some of Kenya’s famous recording artists as the crowd of college students danced along and celebrated the new administration. The festivities at the University of Nairobi were sponsored by Google, as some Google representatives from the States were here to celebrate as well. I got to attend an inaugural ball after all, in the way of thousands of Kenyan college students dancing to live performances, and it was an amazing experience that I will remember for years to come.

Barack Obama: The Musical (The Story of a Kenyan-American told in dance, music, song, and narrative)

Today we went to see a musical at the Kenyan National Theatre called Obama the Musical. Walking into the show, I did not really know what to expect, whether it would be good or bad; but I did know that I would have a unique story to tell about the experience regardless. Once the show ended we all left with a smile on our faces and laughed as we discussed what was a hysterical play that was a good time had all around.

The show opened with just an instrumental intro from the plays music section. This consisted of a jimbay player (an African drum that has a bongo like top and his hollow with an opening at the bottom which gives off a bass drum sound; so the jimbay is versatile because it can give both the sound of a bongo or a bass depending when hit depending upon it is hit), a bass guitar, a drum kit, a keyboard, and a trumpet. The show began with an atmospheric sound that evolved to a tribal song and dance that had the power and sheer awesomeness of seeing something like Riverdance as there was praise to the beauty and soul of Obama’s fathers home Africa. The style of the play was mostly done as an interpretive dance. With the character who was focused on during a given seen narrating and acting out, with many backup dancers to act out the scene as well and used for illustration of the story. The timeline was from the birth of Obama’s father in Kogella, Kenya, and hit highlights of Barack Obama’s life and ended with his victory speech on Election night.

Many of the dances were extremely awesome with their choreography as well as with their creativity of different events that made the audience laugh loudly through most of the play.

Highlights included an interpretation of McCain in which the arm and hand gestures of the real John McCain were portrayed spot-on, as well as an interpretation of Sarah Palin that pointed out her ignorance and numerous gaffes on the campaign trail. I believe that the most creative portion of the play was the way they did the election race, in which they did it as an actual slow motion sprint race between Obama and McCain, in which at the end Obama raised his arms in victory and jumped up and down as McCain tripped and fell. Overall the play was an extremely entertaining experience.

Kibera

"One glimpse is enough. You have discovered the famous misery of the Third World. A sea of homes made from earth and sticks rising from primeval mud-puddle streets. Massive numbers of people live here: somewhere between 500,000 and a million souls. Most, old and young, new arrivals and long-term residents, live without running water, sewers, sanitation, or toilets. Piles of trash line every alley and avenue, giving the neighborhood its trademark look: a motley patina of red dirt, green mango peels, and the festive but faded colours of thousands of discarded plastic bags."

-Robert Neuwirth, "Shadow Cities"

Today we went to Kibera with our program director, which may or may not be the largest urban informal settlement (slum to use the less politically correct term) in the world. As far as surreal moments go in my experiences with traveling in my life, I would say this is up there with visiting the Mae-La Refugee Camp on the Thai-Burma border. The description of Kibera that I posted is taken from a book called "Shadow Cities" about the world's informal settlements, and it is completely accurate to what I saw.

Walking around the streets in the narrow pathways you climb over the ashes from trash that has burned, see thousands of paper bags and garbage off to sides and smell the plethora of scents that come from the trash that litters the streets, the smoke from the burning trash and the people frying food in their pans in front of little shacks, and the smell of raw sewage which floats in the latrine that follows the main path. A little boy about 2 years old urinates into the street the equivalent of a few blocks in front of us, and other boys play around in garbage areas. On a more elevated location I stopped to look around and as far as the eye could see there are rows and rows of tin roofs which cover the mudbuildings. While walking through Kibera I kept thinking "this is the Africa that is portrayed on Western Media, this is picture of Africa that I have seen all my life and have heard about all my life that causes normal people to become burned out do to compassion fatigue.

This is not the story of Kibera that I want to write however. You have heard this story of Africa all your lives and it is grossly inaccurate.

The story I want to give you of Kibera is one that was even more surprising on so many levels. For being an informal settlement, Kibera is extremely developed. The whole main road is lined with shops selling anything from clothes, tools and fruit and other foods to radios, televisions, batteries. There are barbershops and beauty salons, bars, and even an Internet cafe. The lineup, goods, and types of shops found in Kibera are absolutely no different than the shops you would find in downtown Nairobi. The only difference is one area the buildings are all made of mud and tin roofs, while the other has glass and steel and concrete. This honestly surprised me, as I was expecting desolation in the midst of what we would identify as extreme poverty.

The people in this setting were also more lively than the people who work in Nairobi. They were not shy to greet you and the little children would see you coming from far away and would run up and greet you saying "How are you?", and shake your hand and jump up and down. While viewing the children, I could not help but think back to my trip to Thailand last year and a particular instance in which we traveled to an indigenous Hmong village in the Thai countryside. As soon as we got out of our vans the children would run up and chant "Hello 10 baht", trying to sell us necklaces and bracelets. These children in Thailand reminded me of zombies who would follow us around, brainwashed to see a white person as a dollar sign and not a person.

In a stark contrast... these children here in Kibera (one of if not the most famous and largest informal settlement in the world) would spot us white people from a distance and would also chant "How are you" in unison. However they did this with bright, smiling, warm faces and did not view us as just money, but just out of the curiosity of being different." It is this sort of thing that makes me believe in a positive future in Africa-Western behavior, as the youth have not yet been corrupted at a young age. A director at one of the organizations told us not to underestimate the people of Kibera, as there are alot of extremely smart people who live here who have higher education degrees. I think that we should not underestimate the African people, who are able to make a fully functioning, highly developed area out of the largest illegal informal settlement on the continent, if not the planet.

USIU (United States International University- Africa)

I have deliberately waited for awhile to give my impressions of the university that I am taking classes at because I wanted to be able to post a whole story. First off I want to address the basic particulars of my visits to USIU. I am only there two days a week, Monday and Wednesday, and I am taking two classes on those days: 20th Century East Africa (A History Class), and International Organizations. International Organizations is taught by a former Ambassador from Kenya to the UN, and I was pretty excited to hear that. Before I get into my first impressions of USIU I also want to mention that USIU's campus is absolutely gorgeous. It is not terribly large; only a little larger than American University's Campus, but the green spaces are very pretty. The buildings have this wide-open feel to them like buildings you would find in tropical regions. Ok now time for my story:

On Monday morning I had a few things that needed to be done besides attend classes: pick up my school ID, check out my textbooks from the library, obtain my computer lab pass and bus pass. This first day was incredibly frustrating because first off the computer system was down, then no one was where they needed to be and come back at x time became a favorite response, and then we were not showing up as in the system at first. Everywhere we went had their own opinion on how to fix the situation and sent us to somewhere else, or back to people we just came from. At first I thought that this was attributing things to attending school in Africa, and had I written this blog post after Monday this is how it would have read...

But I waited for this post and was pleased to find out it was more just because it was the first day of the semester and people needed to get back in the swing of things. After coming back today things were so simple and took no time at all.

My first impression after my first class that I had... International Organizations, was unique to me because we got into a discussion of the US role in certain international affairs: the UN, the current conflict in Gaza, the war in Iraq. I have never heard of my home country be mentioned in an academic setting outside of my home country.. and it was very interesting. I have been openly critical of choices our nation has made before, but this is a different setting and I feel a sort of obligation to defend my country now. I am incredibly happy to have this opportunity to step outside of the majority and see a very new perspective on everything. Today's class was also interesting because our professor posed the very straightforward question "Which form of conflict resolution is better and why... a bilateral approach or a multilateral approach?"... now I sat back and answered as people in my class raised their hands and picked one and gave their reasons... and I was amazed that students would actually pick one. In my objective way of looking at things I did not answer because to me the answer clearly pends on the context of the conflict... and one of my AU Abroad classmates who shares the class with me answered this way, and was the only one in the class to answer in this way. After conversing after class with my other AU Abroad classmate who is in the class she told me she was thinking along the same lines that us other American students were.

This makes me wonder if college students in other countries do not think as objectively and see multiple answers from an abstract point of view, and if this is the case why is this. Maybe American students are trained to think in this way and evaluate situations, or maybe this is an American University thing. I plan to look out for this in the future as well to see if I can get any answers. One thing that I do know, however is that I am really looking forward to this special and unique opportunity to step away from the environment that I am so used to learning in to get a completely different education for this coming semester.

Nairobi

Yesterday we got a tour of Nairobi. I do not know what the population, and I believe that it not possible to get an accurate population of the city, but I have heard unofficially anywhere from 3-4 million people live in Kenya's capital and my home city for the next three months. The city is very large, but the downtown and the people, community, and networking in this city seem very small.

On this tour we walked around and past the government buildings that is mostly what downtown consists of (very similar to Washington DC), we went to the top of Kenyatta International Conference center and saw amazing views of the city (pictures coming when I have Internet in my apartment), saw the memorial park that was where the US Embassy was bombed in 1998, and went and had an exercise in bargaining at the weekly Masai Market.

The city feels very small, as we were walking around our cultural guide Kevin just happened to run into and introduce my small group to his aunt, and at a separate point one of his old college friends. As we were eating lunch, he pointed out one of his old teachers who was walking down the street. While Nairobi is a sprawling large world capital city, the downtown area did not feel very big at all. This really surprised me that just walking down the street someone who has lived here for a few years could run into several people that he knew.

The Masai Market was an experience in itself as well. We had a bargaining tutorial game to play, as our Abroad Director gave each one of us 100 Kenyan Shillings (about one dollar 20 cents in US currency) and we had a contest to see who could get the best buy for that small amount. While I have been to markets in various parts of the world that involve little stations and bargaining (in Mexico, Thailand, Dominican Republic), I have never experienced something quite like a Kenyan Market. The different merchants would follow you down a substantial length away attempting to get you to look at their stuff, even after you say no to them, as well as some people would attempt to escort me to their little area. This is not uncommon to me to see, however what was is that some were attempting to use my watch or backpack or whatever as bargaining material... this is different to me and I think it reflects the openness and forwardness of the Kenyan merchants. i ended up getting an artwork piece done on banana skin of the Lake Victoria region (where Obama is from)... Speaking of which, saying you are from Illinois has proved to be a great bargaining chip because people here love Obama and Obama things are found absolutely everywhere. I think that as an American i could not have picked a more perfect time to be in Kenya, and I will use my Senator and now President to my full advantage when bargaining or conversing with Kenyans in general.

Karibu Kenya!!

There’s more to Mama Africa than poverty and war. I wish we had a fighting chance To show off who we are.

Eric Wainana, Kenyan Recording Artist, "Twende Twende"

Hello from Kenya!!
After what I have heard about Africa and Kenya, I can truly say that my first impressions are that it is a magical place. I had a belated first impression I arrived after dark but the trip so far has been extraordinary!! I only hope that this impression is a lasting one. The morning after arriving, we began our orientation into our semester Abroad in Kenya. Our director had the brilliant idea to do this in a smaller Kenyan town instead of breaking us into Nairobi right away (which would probably be Nairobi as our first encounter into Kenya).
Kenya does not disappoint my expectations. As we were driving the hour and a half towards the small town of Naivasha (which I heard is the world's largest exporter of roses, we made one bend on the highway and found ourselves looking and descending into the breathtaking Rift Valley. The Rift Valley looks like a gigantic crater surrounded by mountains. It was every bit as scenic as Kenya looks in pictures and it is absolutely captivating.

While in the town of Naivasha, we learned about Kenyan culture and had different briefings regarding life here, learned some Survival Swahili, and did some team-building activities and games to get to know everyone better. We have had these fantastic "cultural guides": three late-20s Kenyans who have helped out and been very informative and who I owe my growing level of comfort to. I will forever be thankful to them and all the time I have spent visiting with them and talking and learning. Kenyans are truly amazing, warm people. From what I have experienced so far they are very out-going fun loving people with so much spirit I have never witnessed anything like it before. In the words of Val, one of our Cultural Assistants "Kenyans like to sing and dance and move around alot and it helps us forget about our troubles or bad things". They will greet you on the streets and stop and talk with you if you greet them first. I was wondering around Naivasha and fell into step with a man in a Chelsea jersey carrying a sack heading for the market, and I struck up a conversation with this complete stranger about soccer. He seemed to be very happy to have the conversation and it appeared to be a mutually pleasant moment. Kenyans are very warm, open, engaging, spirited people; and I look forward to meeting more people like this. This culture is a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of city life on the East Coast, in which people are very private and eye contact does not exist in passing on the streets, but it is comparable to life in the small towns in which you say hi to people passing on the street.
Kenya does have its problems though that interest me greatly as an International Development student. This country possesses so much
natural beauty, and yet when walking down the streets of Naivasha amidst the views of mountains and the lake plastic bags, broken sandals, rags, and just pure waste lie in the cactus, the plants, the bushes. It is very sad to see and makes me want to learn more and create more with more effective and proper, if not newer waste removal and disposal programs and services.

One other striking thing that has leaped out at me from Kenya that reflects other developing nations is the amount of advertising seen everywhere by only a few giant corporations. On buildings and billboards and houses everywhere you see Coca-Cola or Tusker (Kenyan Beer) or 2 different telecommunications services signs. I have a great interest in this and makes me want to know the history of how this happens not just in Kenya but in other developing countries as well. I may find out more by being here more and this explore later. I leave this blogpost full of curiosity for the country I will be living in for the next few months, and extremely excited to explore and post more on these adventures (and I will upload pictures once I'm back on my computer and have Internet in my apartment. So far I can say that Kenya is a truly deep, magical place.